Cheap new or good used?

After putting up with hard water that tastes like crap and eats my plumbing, i have decided to do something about it.

Got my water tested at sears last night. they did the test right there in 10 minutes with a small (few ounce) sample. The results were hardness of 4 (moderately hard) don't recall the units used, pH of 7, no iron.

A few years back I brought a sample to a local plumbing supply place that did what seemed to me, a more thorough test. Don't recall the results exactly other than they said it was hard and acidic. At the time I decided to live with my hard acid water. Getting tired of replacing faucets though.

So, my question is, is the recently done test at sears a reliable one? Or do you get what you pay for with an instant free test?

According to the sears test, their 400 dollar kenmore model will do me fine.

From what I've read on the internet, yeah, it will.....for 3 or 4 years. I am also considering buying a higher quality used unit as I find that old good stuff trumps new junk any day of the week. I am an electromechanical technician by trade and am pretty comfortable working with that type of stuff. Would taking my chances with a good quality used unit I find on craigslist be my best bet, knowing that I might need to do a little work on it. Even if it means calling in a real water system tech if need be?

Some of the listings I've found on CL are Culligan mark 89, Fleck Model 5600 Econominder and a Kinetico model 60.

My impression is that the model 60 is a very good unit, but, may not be so DIY friendly as the parts are proprietary.

One other question. My sister in law has a culligan cullsorb system in her house that has been in bypass since she bought the place 5 years ago. She says it's mine if I want it. From what I have read about it, it won't help with softening, but might help with overall water quality.

Should I throw this thing in and see what happens? It will only cost me a few hours and a little solder. Alerady got enough valves and pipe laying around from past projects.

After putting up with hard water that tastes like crap and eats my plumbing, i have decided to do something about it.

Got my water tested at sears last night. they did the test right there in 10 minutes with a small (few ounce) sample. The results were hardness of 4 (moderately hard) don't recall the units used, pH of 7, no iron.

A few years back I brought a sample to a local plumbing supply place that did what seemed to me, a more thorough test. Don't recall the results exactly other than they said it was hard and acidic. At the time I decided to live with my hard acid water. Getting tired of replacing faucets though.

So, my question is, is the recently done test at sears a reliable one? Or do you get what you pay for with an instant free test?

According to the sears test, their 400 dollar kenmore model will do me fine.

From what I've read on the internet, yeah, it will.....for 3 or 4 years. I am also considering buying a higher quality used unit as I find that old good stuff trumps new junk any day of the week. I am an electromechanical technician by trade and am pretty comfortable working with that type of stuff. Would taking my chances with a good quality used unit I find on craigslist be my best bet, knowing that I might need to do a little work on it. Even if it means calling in a real water system tech if need be?

Some of the listings I've found on CL are Culligan mark 89, Fleck Model 5600 Econominder and a Kinetico model 60.

My impression is that the model 60 is a very good unit, but, may not be so DIY friendly as the parts are proprietary.

One other question. My sister in law has a culligan cullsorb system in her house that has been in bypass since she bought the place 5 years ago. She says it's mine if I want it. From what I have read about it, it won't help with softening, but might help with overall water quality.

Should I throw this thing in and see what happens? It will only cost me a few hours and a little solder. Alerady got enough valves and pipe laying around from past projects.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If your sister has a Culligan filter set up that you can have, then it would not be much of a challenge to change it over to a sofener. Rebuilding the valve is rather simple if you have a parts lay out and the parts are still out there as they have not changed in the last 10 years, elect control may have changed but the pistons are still the same pistons.
With the adding of a brine tank and a brine tank flow control of .45 and say 1 cubic foot of resin that unit could be up and running under a softener configuration.
The Fleck 5600 is another good choice in that it too has been around for years and most likely will be around for years to come and is even easier to work on than the Culligan.